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According to the Oslo Agreements, land registration is held exclusively by the Civil Administration without the cooperation or sharing of information with the Palestinian Authority. Over the years, however, several cases of leaking information from the Civil Administration to Palestinian security agencies to prevent the sale of land to Jews in Area C have been exposed. For example, several cases provided evidence with documents of real estate transactions submitted by the registration bureaus at the DCO. They were presented a few days later in investigations by the Palestinian security forces to the Palestinians who handed them over. The evidence proves that they are not word-of-mouth rumors, but rather accurate information transmitted in detail, from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side. Sometimes, even as soon as at the departure from the transaction registration, the executor of the transaction is stopped by the same people. For example, in January 2019: A Palestinian citizen came with an Arab-Israeli lawyer to make a transaction registration at the Ramallah Headquarters. Upon their exit from the compound, they were under surveillance until they were detained at the Beitin junction by Palestinian preventive security personnel. Currently, the Palestinian citizen is nowhere to be found, and the lawyer managed to escape and return to Israeli territory. Palestinian law, which derives from Jordanian law, issues a life sentence of hard labor for a Palestinian who sells land to Israelis. However, the suspect's tracks often disappear; he is likely to be killed in unnatural ways, murdered, or even forced suicide, 'work accidents', strange medical complications, and more. Some of these incidents occur in prison and some in Palestinian territory. Some incidents occur even in Israeli territory. Despite the shocking stories, the Official Position of the Civil Administration is that the information is not transmitted to the Palestinian offices and that Palestinian workers are controlled. However, the information is regularly channeled, often leading to the deaths of Palestinians. |
